


atlas

by starlight_sugar



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-24 22:46:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9790520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: “This is our chance,” Lucretia mumbles against Maureen’s shoulder. “This is our chance to make the world better.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work by a fan for fans, not affiliated with MaxFun or the McElroys.  
> Canon notes: mild spoilers up through The Suffering Game. non-canonical as of Lunar Interlude V.  
> Content warnings: allusions to PTSD/traumatic events.

In the most technical sense, Wonderland is not more of a failure than any of Lucretia’s other attempts to get a Grand Relic. She followed a lead, she arrived, she failed, she left. It’s been that way a dozen times over now. The only difference this time is… well, her. Her, and the nightmares.

“This is ridiculous,” Maureen says, on the twenty-fourth night in a row that Lucretia can’t sleep for the nightmares. “This isn’t healthy, what you’re doing to yourself. These relics aren’t worth it.”

“Aren’t worth it?” Lucretia repeats. “The relics can control the fate of the world-”

“But it’s not your burden to bear.” Maureen lifts a hand to Lucretia’s cheek, looking sad. “You don’t owe the world anything, Lucy.”

“I owe the world all the good that I can give it,” Lucretia answers. It’s an old argument, one that goes in circles. The world is good enough without you. The world is better with me. It’s not your job to make it better, and it never has been. But I can, Maureen, I can so I must.

This time, instead of arguing, Maureen just sighs. “I’m glad you think it’s worth it,” she says, withdraws her hand, leaves.

And Lucretia considers, for the first time, that it might not be worth the sacrifice.

#

Boyland finds the lead on the Voidfish, and the teenager guarding it. He introduces himself as Johann and watches them warily the entire time they’re observing the tank, like he’s ready to throw himself between them and it.

“Do you know how it works?” Lucretia asks, tilting her head to examine the tank. It’s going to grow out of it soon, she can tell. They’re going to need something much bigger.

Johann shrugs. “You put something in the tank, it absorbs it, and people forget it.”

“How do people avoid forgetting it?”

“You drink some of the water from the tank.”

Lucretia nearly gags. “Pardon?”

“You just scoop it out and drink it. It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

“It sounds like a nightmare,” Boyland growls.

Johann shrugs again. “But it’s a useful nightmare. What do you guys want to know for, anyways?”

Lucretia looks at the tank more closely. This fish, this strange monstrous jellyfish could be the key to the ideas she’s been having. It could make her thoughts a reality.

“Johann,” she says, trying to keep the dawning awe out of her voice, “how would you like to help save the world?”

#

She still has nightmares, about Cam, about him screaming at her as she left, but that night she makes it out of Wonderland in her dreams. She escapes. She supposes that’s a step forward.

#

And then she tells Maureen about the Voidfish, expecting her to be excited. Maureen only frowns at her.

Lucretia frowns back. “What is it?”

“How does it do what it does?”

“Magic, more than likely.”

Maureen grimaces. “I should’ve figured.”

“Magic has saved both of our lives before,” Lucretia reminds her. “I know that you value your science, and I do too, but magic-”

“It’s not the magic, it’s that it’s magic that we don’t understand.”

“We don’t understand most magic.”

Maureen turns away, crossing her arms, and Lucretia’s frown deepens. Things have been different, since Wonderland, and she knows that most of that is because of her. But Maureen has been turning away from her more often now. There’s been distance that wasn’t there before and Lucretia thinks, somewhere too deep to verbalize, that she can’t stand this distance for much longer.

She takes a ginger step forward. “Mo?”

Maureen turns further away. “You’re serious about this,” she says, voice cracking. “About this bureau idea.”

“Of course I’m serious about it, I’ve been serious this whole time.”

“I know you have, but…” Maureen sighs, turns back to Lucretia but lowers her head so Lucretia can’t meet her eyes. “Lucy, twenty years…”

Lucretia freezes. She wants to take a step back but her muscles are locked into place. Carefully, voice measured, she says, “I thought it didn’t bother you that I’m older now.”

Maureen’s head snaps back up. She looks horrified. “No, no, that’s not it at all.” She reaches out and seems to change her mind, an aborted motion that leaves one hand half-outstretched to Lucretia. “The years don’t bother me. They don’t. The fact that you don’t seem to think it matters bothers me.”

“Of course I know it matters, I-”

“Do you?” Maureen says, whipcrack sharp. “Because you lost, what, a quarter of your life - you bet a quarter of your life in a chess game, and you have nightmares every night. And you’ve kept going as though it doesn’t matter.”

Part of Lucretia, maybe a more childish part, wants to say that it’s not fair of Maureen to say that. Maureen has been there for the nightmares, every single night that she’s woken up screaming. She’s seen the parts of the aftermath that Lucretia doesn’t want anybody else to know exists. She knows that it matters. “Of course I kept going,” she says, and she can’t help the way her voice cants up into a question. “I had to.”

“But you didn’t!” Maureen throws her arms wide, like Lucretia is missing something obvious. “You could’ve said ‘I got hurt, and I can’t do this anymore,’ and called it done and moved on.”

“These relics are killing people, and I can’t let them-”

“Fuck those people!” Maureen shouts, and Lucretia’s chest tightens. “They don’t deserve you, and you don’t owe them your life, Lucretia!”

“I’m not going to give up my life-”

“Aren’t you?”

“No,” Lucretia says, and she’s not sure how true that is but she says it as though it’s absolute. “I’m not.”

Maureen deflates, visibly, shoulders sagging. “There are only two people I would burn the world down to save,” she says, softer now. “One is Lucas, and the other is you. But you wouldn’t let me do that, and it scares me.”

“I’d never ask you to burn the world down,” Lucretia answers.

Maureen looks away. “I know.”

“I have to do this.”

“I know you think so.”

Lucretia takes a careful step forward, and then another. “Maureen-”

“Just promise me,” Maureen says, and when she turns back her face is inches from Lucretia’s. She looks sadder than Lucretia has ever seen. “Promise me that you won’t let these relics take you from me.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Then lie.”

Lucretia leans in, brushes her lips against Maureen’s. It’s not the same, since Wonderland. This body doesn’t feel right on her yet. But she tries, because this is Maureen, and Maureen matters. “I promise,” she says.

“Good,” Maureen says, and hauls Lucretia in by the shoulders for a hug, squeezing her waist like she’s afraid Lucretia will evaporate. “We’ll talk about the Voidfish, okay? We’ll figure something out.”

“This is our chance, Mo,” Lucretia mumbles against Maureen’s shoulder. “This is our chance to make the world better.”

“This is your chance,” Maureen answers sadly, and Lucretia doesn’t know how to argue with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on Tumblr @pervincetosscobble or Twitter @jazfiute. Thanks for reading!


End file.
